Candice Bergen TOPICS: Celebrity Arts / Music / Drama FEE CATEGORY:* 50.0k to 75.0k TRAVELS FROM: California Profile Request This Speaker

Candice Bergen: Profile

Award Winning Actress

This coolly elegant, poised blonde star came to prominence in the 1960s and 70s. Bergen has said that she often chose her films during the 70s based on their location--the more exotic the better.

During this time, she also developed a secondary career as a respected photographer (whose work appeared in numerous popular magazines) as well as a TV photojournalist. One role that married both her careers was her brief but telling cameo as famed photographer Margaret Bourke-White in Richard Attenborough's epic "Gandhi" (1982).

The actress gave one of her best dramatic performances in John Milius' "The Wind and the Lion" (1975), in which she was an American woman kidnapped by a Moroccan sheik (Sean Connery). Although she held her own in the sappy "Oliver's Story" (1978) the sequel to 1970's "Love Story", Bergen still was not recognized as an full-fledged actress.

The turnaround in her career came with "Starting Over" (1979). The film demonstrated her full comedic and dramatic range and earned her an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress.

She teamed with Jacqueline Bisset in "Rich and Famous" (1981), an uneven remake of the 1943 Bette Davis-Miriam Hopkins vehicle "Old Acquaintance", now better recalled as the final film of director George Cukor. After reteaming with Reynolds in "Stick" (1985), Bergen's big screen career basically ended.

Attempting to stretch as an actor, Bergen made her Broadway debut replacing Sigourney Weaver in David Rabe's satire of Hollywood, "Hurlyburly", directed by Mike Nichols. Her TV-movie career began in 1985 with three diverse roles. Bergen portrayed the evil Morgan Le Fay in "Arthur the King", and in "Murder: By Reason of Insanity".

In 1987, she was well-cast as the society debutante-turned escort service owner Sidney Biddle Barrows, the so-called "Mayflower Madam".

But "Murphy Brown" guaranteed her a place in TV history. Not only did she win five Emmy Awards during her tenure on the show, she made headlines in 1992 when then vice-president Dan Quayle criticized "Murphy Brown" for creating the storyline of Murphy having a baby out of wedlock.

Bergen made several television appearances after her run on "Murphy Brown" ended, including "Sex and the City" in 1998 but didn't really re-emerge until appearing in "Miss Congeniality" with Sandra Bullock in 2000.

She also appeared in the Reese Witherspoon movie "Sweet Home Alabama" (2002) and the Gwenyth Paltrow vehicle "A View from the Top" (lensed 2002) as well as "Till Death Do Us Part" with Michael Douglas (lensed 2002).

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